Elizabeth Householder Russell

A history of Elizabeth Householder Russell (1834-1911), written in 1942 by Mary Louisa Cleverly Day (1901-1980), a great-granddaughter, and edited on March 10, 2009, by Dean B. Cleverly, a second-great-grandson.

Elizabeth Householder, daughter of Jonathan Householder and Evan Painter, was born January 11, 1834, at Armstrong County, Pennsylvania. Her mother died when she was twelve years old. She married James Russell on September 5, 1851, at West Elizabeth, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, when she was seventeen years of age. Her eyes were gray, her hair brown, her health good. She was especially interested in her family.

Elizabeth and her husband came to Utah in 1861 with an independent company. Her father came at the same time. They settled in Weber Valley at Hoyts Mill. The Hoytsville settlement was in Summit County, just south of what is now Coalville. Elizabeth and James had five small children at the time. Three children were born to them under the poor living conditions in Weber Valley. A daughter was born the same year they arrived. A son died and was buried there.

Elizabeth didn't join the Church, but her husband did. She was very pious and very religious. She did not believe in dancing or reading of novels. Her children were allowed to read only the best reading materials. She taught her children to pray and to be honest, so honest that even if a pin were picked up it should be given back. She didn't think it right men should have more than one wife and couldn't understand the Mormon view of it. She was a good seamstress and taught her daughters to sew, knit, embroider, etc. When she finally owned a sewing machine she taught the girls to use it also. She had had schooling and in turn gave it to her children.

When anyone was in need of help you could always find Mrs. Russell there doing her part. A neighbor's small child got lost in the sagebrush soon after the family got to the valley. Mrs. Russell had her oldest daughter watch the children and went with her husband in search of the lost child. This hunt lasted a week, and she was there until they found the child, which had wandered until it got to the mountains.

The old cemetery near Coalville, which has been moved now, joined on to the farm the Russells had. The Weber River also joined their land.

She finally persuaded her husband to go back to Pennsylvania in 1866. She buried a son, James, at St. Joseph, Missouri. When they boy was sick he kept asking for chicken. Two of the children, Annie and William, were sent to buy a chicken. They went up one side of the street and back on the other, but no chicken was to be found or bought. A couple of days passed, and the two children heard a noise while playing in the yard and saw a flock of quail coming. The quail landed in the yard. William had a stick in his hand and hit three of the birds, killing them. The rest flew away, and the quail was used to make soup for the sick boy.

Four more children were born to her while living in Pennsylvania and Kansas. She moved from Pennsylvania over to Kansas when that land was being pioneered. They came back to Utah in 1889 and settled in Provo. She lived there until her husband died in 1893. She then went back to Kansas to be with her children, leaving one married daughter in Utah.

She was mother of twelve children and left a large posterity. She died of dropsy [an old term for the swelling of soft tissues caused by the accumulation of excess water, probably edema caused by congestive heart failure] at St. John, Kansas, November 24, 1911. She was 77 years old.

When this history was written in 1942, there were seven children living and enjoying health. Annie Russell Ritchie, my grandmother, was the oldest living at age 85, and Melzine at age 66 the youngest.